


Stay Lucky

by retrinazambrano



Series: Catching the Cues [2]
Category: Miami Medical
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-11
Updated: 2017-07-11
Packaged: 2020-04-06 15:48:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19065724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/retrinazambrano/pseuds/retrinazambrano
Summary: Chris puts himself in harm's way again, and he's not quite so lucky this time around.





	Stay Lucky

**Author's Note:**

> Title from and gently inspired by the Nerina Pallot song of the same name.

She'd been dashing around a heaving trauma ward when she saw his face on the stretcher beneath her. Chris Deleo, her favourite charismatic high-flying trauma buddy, victim to his own altruism. A risky plan from all angles, Chris had run into a crumbling building when in the field with the paramedics against all better advice, arguing that the positive would be that he could save the lives of three people. The negatives, in a word, fatal.

And the negatives won out.

They'd lost all three patients in the impact and Eva just hopes their deaths were quick, as she's informed, walking quickly alongside Chris's gurney, taking in the superficial cuts and bruises to his face. He just looks like he's sleeping like this and it would be peaceful, sweet, if there wasn't a brace around his neck. This isn't something she'd wish on her worst enemy, seeing her friend comatose, barely making it to the entrance following the collapse, getting hit by falling shrapnel at the very last moment, walking the tightrope between life and death. A slow death if all goes wrong, his very soul slipping away before her eyes and, for a medic, trained in saving lives, she hates the feeling of acute helplessness, a feeling she hoped she'd never have to feel again at the hands of a cherished one.

\------

Three days had passed since and he's still in a bad way. He'd been whisked into the OR to relieve the pressure on his brain and although Eva had pleaded with Proctor to let her assist him in the procedure, he simply told her that with all that emotion coursing through her veins, she would be a liability, something she found offensive. Now, though, looking back, she realises it was absolutely the right decision. She could never have lived with herself if it was her mistake that cost him his life.

It's not his fault and it is all his fault all at once. Her emotions are entirely her own, but his insistence at going through with his damn plan? That is his fault and she hates him for it, hates the paramedics, hates buildings… hell, she hates Miami right now.

When her rational side wins out - less frequently than usual at the moment, with a half-dead colleague and friend - she realises that that is his job. Trauma pays the bills. His carefully constructed plan was necessary and at least he attempted to save three lives.

Except those three victims are six feet under and Chris is three away off joining them.

Eva can't think like that though; standing, stretching from the uncomfortable plastic seat, pushing her hair back from her face in frustration.

_Why won't you fight it, Chris? Fight back! Wake up!_

She's in tears by the end of her sentence, turning away and taking a deep breath, her fingers grasping at the hair at her temple.

 _I'm sorry!_ She gasps as she rushes back to his side, grasping his hand. _I'm sorry for shouting,_ she relays breathlessly. _I'll even go on that damn date with you if you wake up. Please wake up. Please._

\------

The incessant beeping is what wakens Eva from her uncomfortable slumber, her head at an unnatural angle upon Chris's mattress and as she lifts her head, blinks, gets her bearings, she realises that something is seriously wrong. She jumps up, reading the stats on the screen with the ease only her training can provide, hitting the call button on the wall.

He's slipping away. He's dying.

\------

Eva tries her utmost to prevent herself from becoming hysterical - it's not like her at all - but she can't help but become a victim to the ghosts in her mind that shout and gloat at her absolute inability to help. Proctor won't allow her in the room, Tuck suggesting she go to the staff room and all she can hear is the echo echo echo of the heart monitor in her head. It's deafening. She slumps into a chair and puts her hands over her ears. How is she going to deal with all of this? How is she going to tell his brother - only just recovering from his own illness - that he's done all this fighting only to lose his closest relative? How? It's the only and single word she can think of, asides why? Eva feels her ire spike again, anger flooding her veins at her friend's impulsive behaviour and she wants to scream the hospital down, but no sound comes out, nothing at all, except a heartbreaking sob.

\------

Eva's trance only breaks when Proctor comes in and, by his ashen expression, she knows. She knows he's gone but, oddly enough, she doesn't feel it. _Just a coping mechanism kicking in, denial is the first of the five stages of grief after all…_

 _What? What did you say?_ Eva blinks and stares at her boss, not quite believing what he's saying.

_Eva, Chris is still with us._

\------

She's sure the hour she has to wait before she can see Chris again is the longest, most excruciating wait she's had to endure in recent years, one that feels like days upon days of torture, but it's all worth it when she sees her pal, still unconscious but breathing; she is nothing but thankful for everything. Every little thing, all the moments they shared their innermost feelings over drinks, the little flirtatious looks and comments, every time he called her Peaches, the heated arguments over a patient that they're susceptible to at times, she's happy for it all. Wants to tell him just how much she treasures him.

And she does just that.

 _You had me for a minute there,_ she laughs uneasily, fitting her hand into his and squeezing it. I thought you were letting go. A tear, two then three escape, before the dam breaks and she's openly sobbing. She lifts his hand to her lips and kisses it gently.

\------

Chris comes round the following day and even though Proctor quite rightly warns that he's not out of the woods yet and that his rehabilitation will be lengthy, Eva vows to him that she'll be right alongside him, that, despite his necessary recklessness and what she jokingly coins the need to be the hero, she's glad she met him, that luck threw them together into the madhouse that is their job. Their luck hasn't quite run out yet.


End file.
